"Yes, my Lord!" Brida slammed her heavy iron gauntlet against her shield, immediately stepping forward to corral the shivering girls. "You heard the Sovereign! Form up, ladies! Move your feet before they freeze to the stone!"

As the newly summoned combat troops were led away into the pouring rain toward the Armored Barracks, Silas turned his attention back to Kaelia.

The S-Rank Chef stood entirely alone under the green canopy of the oak tree, looking incredibly nervous without a weapon or a designated squad to fall in with.

She rubbed her rough hands together, her dark eyes darting between the towering, imposing steel walls of the territory and the dark-purple mythril sword of the Lord who had brought her here.

"You wait here with me," Silas instructed her, intentionally softening his imposing expression and offering a much calmer, reassuring smile.

"Am I... am I not fighting, my Lord?" Kaelia asked nervously with her voice trembling slightly over the steady drumming of the rain. "Why did I even ask that? I do not possess any martial skills... I cannot swing a sword or draw a bow... I only know how to prep and combine ingredients."

"You are going to fight the most important battle in this territory," Silas corrected her smoothly. "You are going to keep the girls fed."

He looked up at the vibrant green canopy above them. "Eluned."

The Goddess of Nature, still radiating an aura of divine jealousy over the fact that Silas had knelt for a mortal, elegantly raised her pale hand.

The massive oak tree violently shifted.

A dense, incredibly thick cluster of broad green leaves detached from the main canopy with a soft rustle.

Guided entirely by Eluned’s flawless magical precision, the leaves wove themselves together in mid-air, forming a large, sturdy, completely waterproof floating umbrella.

It hovered perfectly over Silas and the Chef, casting a soft emerald glow over their faces.

"Follow me..." Silas ordered.

He led Kaelia out from under the portal archway, walking confidently across the wet, perfectly paved stone tiles of the courtyard.

The floating leaf umbrella flawlessly tracked their movements, aggressively redirecting the heavy, freezing rain away from them, keeping the Chef perfectly dry.

They walked toward the massive, imposing dark-stone masonry of the newly constructed building occupying the eastern quadrant of the territory.

Silas pushed open the heavy, iron-reinforced double doors of the facility, stepping aside slightly to let Kaelia enter first.

The moment the S-Rank Chef stepped over the threshold, she entirely stopped breathing.

The interior of the Tier 2 Culinary Haven was fully illuminated by the warm, ambient glow of the enchanted iron hearths.

The air inside was incredibly warm, completely banishing the necrotic chill of the Umbral Basin, and smelled of clean stone and pristine iron.

Kaelia’s dark eyes widened to comical, disbelieving proportions as she took in her new domain.

She saw the flawless black tile floors that looked entirely immune to grime.

She saw the massive, twenty-foot-long, perfectly level obsidian prep island dominating the center of the room.

She saw the highly advanced, rune-carved ovens built directly into the far wall with their internal fires glowing in smokeless perfection.

"This is..." Kaelia whispered, her calloused hands visibly trembling as she slowly walked toward the center island.

She ran her rough fingers over the perfectly smooth, dark glass of the obsidian counter.

She looked up at the heavy, incredibly high-tier iron cleavers, skillets, and cauldrons hanging from the heavy timber ceiling racks. Thora’s craftsmanship was evident in every single rivet and edge then, her eyes locked entirely onto the preservation cabinets built into the far wall.

Silas had instructed Tamsin to manually move all the primary ingredients from the Frost-Sealed Vault into the Haven earlier that morning in preparation for a cook.

Resting behind the insulated, magically chilled glass were massive, fifty-pound slabs of perfectly marbled, deeply crimson Tier 3 Ursine meat.

Stacked neatly beside the heavy meat were woven wooden baskets filled to the brim with glowing red Spirit-Fruits and heavy golden sheaves of freshly harvested Aether-Wheat. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

Kaelia’s nervous terrified demeanor completely vanished.

The exact moment the S-Rank Culinary Maestro registered the astronomical quality of the raw ingredients and the peerless functionality of the facility, her back straightened.

The trembling in her hands stopped entirely.

A terrifying sharp intensity ignited in her dark eyes. It was an intense focus that rivaled Brida standing in a shield wall or Tamsin tracking prey in the mud.

’I can get behind this!’

She wasn’t a soldier who understood the geometry of a sword swing, but she was an apex predator squarely within her own domain...

"Tier 3 apex predator meat from what I can see" Kaelia analyzed as she stepped closer to inspect the marbling through the glass. "The density in these muscle fibers is incredible. The creature must have relied on brute force over evasion. If this is roasted incorrectly over an open flame, it will instantly turn to rubber and shatter a mortal’s teeth but... if I slow-braise this cut over a highly controlled heat source, utilizing the extracted juices of those Spirit-Fruits as a localized marinade... the acidic mana will perfectly break down the tough connective tissue. It will force the dormant, highly concentrated EXP locked inside the muscle to bind perfectly with the rendering fat."

’What the hell is she talking about?’ Silas thought, was cooking ever that serious?!

She turned around, facing Silas with a fiercely confident proud expression.

She puffed her chest out slightly, resting her calloused hands firmly on her hips.

The nervous shivering recruit was entirely gone, replaced by a Master of her craft.

"I can work with this, Lord Graves," Kaelia declared, the golden S-Rank tab hovering above her head pulsing brightly in the warm light of the hearths. "I will cook a feast that will make your soldier strong enough to tear down mountains."

Silas leaned casually against the heavy wooden doorframe, chuckling warmly as the smell of fresh clean rain blew in from the courtyard behind him.

"I expect nothing less, Kaelia," Silas grinned, his blue eyes flashing with deep satisfaction. "The kitchen is officially yours."

...

The torrential monsoon battered aggressively against the dark, heavily reinforced stone roof of the Tier 2 Culinary Haven, but inside, the atmosphere was entirely disconnected from the gloomy freezing nightmare of the Umbral Basin.

"Mmmmmh~"

The massive kitchen was sweltering, filled with the roaring smokeless heat of the enchanted iron hearths and an aroma so rich and complex that it bordered on physically intoxicating.

Standing securely behind the sprawling, twenty-foot obsidian prep island, Kaelia was operating in a state of culinary nirvana.

The S-Rank Maestro moved with a terrifying efficiency that made the heavy, highly dangerous iron cookware seem weightless in her grip.

Her calloused hands blurred as she dragged a massive, thirty-pound iron cleaver across the fifty-pound slabs of Tier 3 Corrupted Ursine meat.

The Boss-tier flesh was notoriously dense, packed tightly with tough, dormant magical fibers that would normally deflect a dull blade, but Kaelia knew exactly where the anatomical weak points were located.

She sliced through the heavy joints with precision.

"Nu~"

She wasn’t just humming while she worked... she was fully singing, entirely lost in the rhythm of her craft.

"In the helll~ where the warlords tread... I take the beast and bake the bread~" Kaelia sang to herself, her cleaver hitting the obsidian block in perfect time with her rhythm.

THWACK! THWACK! THWACK!

"Spice the blood and salt the meat... give the Sovereign what he needs to eat~"

But Kaelia wasn’t just relying on precise knife work. She was fundamentally altering the nature of the food.

Her dark eyes narrowed in intense focus as a soft, brilliant golden glow enveloped her palms.

The golden light bled directly into the iron blade of her cleaver and seeped into the raw ingredients scattered across the smooth obsidian glass.

[Active Skill: Culinary Alchemy]

She worked the high-tier magic flawlessly, seamlessly integrating it into her physical movements.

The Corrupted Ursine meat still carried faint traces of the basin’s toxic miasma and Kaelia’s golden aura purged it instantly, purifying the deep crimson flesh until it glowed with wholesome vitality.

She grabbed the glowing red Spirit-Fruits they had harvested from the Conservatory, crushing them effortlessly in her grip to extract their highly acidic, concentrated magical juices into a heavy iron bowl.

She added a handful of crushed, aromatic roots she had found in the Vault, creating a violently bubbling, incredibly fragrant marinade.

She folded the glowing crimson liquid directly into the deeply scored cuts of the Ursine meat.

The S-Rank skill forcefully catalyzed a rapid biological reaction.

The acidic mana of the fruit violently broke down the incredibly tough connective tissues of the Boss meat.

More importantly, the alchemy forced the raw unassimilated EXP trapped within the dead monster’s muscle to bind perfectly and harmoniously with the rendering fat, transforming a slab of brutal monster flesh into a consumable elixir of pure energy.

"In the dark and the freezing rain... we boil the marrow and numb the pain~" Kaelia continued to sing, tossing the heavily marinated slabs onto the massive, enchanted iron skillets resting over the hearths.

The heavy meat hissed aggressively the moment it hit the hot iron, sending a thick, mouth-watering plume of savory deeply spiced steam wafting directly up through the high-vaulted ceiling vents.

She moved fluidly to the next station, rapidly kneading a massive mound of Aether-Wheat dough.

Her knuckles pushed into the golden flour, infusing it with tiny pulses of mana to ensure the bread would rise perfectly in the intense heat of the magical ovens.

Outside the heavy double doors of the Haven, the tactical situation in the courtyard was rapidly devolving into desperation.

The entire Guard was huddled together on wooden tables and chairs made by Eluned beneath the sprawling vibrant green canopy of Eluned’s magical oak tree, sheltering from the relentless downpour but nobody was paying attention to the severe weather or discussing tactical formations.

Thirty mortal women, clad entirely in heavy, rain-slicked iron armor, were practically glued to the Culinary Haven’s exterior dark-stone walls.

They were sniffing the air aggressively.

The aroma leaking through the stone vents was an unforgiving form of psychological torture! Why did it smell so good? What was she adding into it? The scent that was coming from it was too much for even Silas.

"I cannot take this anymore," Fenna groaned miserably, her stomach letting out a highly undignified, loudly rumbling growl that echoed over the rain.

She pressed her forehead directly against the cold, wet stone masonry of the kitchen wall, looking like a starved orphan.

"If she doesn’t open those heavy doors in the next two minutes, I swear to the gods I am going to breach the kitchen myself with a battering ram."

"Hold your line, archer..." Brida reprimanded firmly, attempting to project the unyielding authority of a heavy infantry captain.

However, the effect was completely ruined by the fact that Brida was actively wiping a thick trail of saliva from her own scarred chin.

"Let the Chef work. You cannot rush perfection. If you break down that door, I will personally feed you to the monsters outside."

Gunnhild was gripping the hilt of her broadsword so tightly her knuckles were white, staring at the wood of the double doors as if trying to magically burn a hole through them.

The heavy wooden doors of the Haven finally groaned open, spilling a wave of incredible heat and savory steam out into the cold courtyard.

Kaelia stepped out into the damp air, her face flushed a healthy pink from the intense heat of the hearths.

She effortlessly carried two massive, heavily laden wooden platters, balancing them perfectly on her forearms. Behind her, Tamsin and a few of the newly summoned recruits hurried out, carrying the rest of the massive feast.

"Breakfast is served, Lord Graves," Kaelia announced proudly, puffing out her chest with undeniable pride as she approached the command group.

’I hope he likes it...’ Kaelia wanted to bring smiles to her Lord’s face.

Silas stepped out from the center of the Vanguard with his blue eyes widening slightly at the stunning culinary display as Eluned clung to his arm.

’Damn...’